[WRC] News & rumours (part III)

[Loose_Unit]

I would be so glad to see split times gone... I think its one of the biggest killers to be honest. Just get in the car and drive flat out! none of this damn pacing against each other...

[Franky]

I would be so glad to see split times gone... I think its one of the biggest killers to be honest. Just get in the car and drive flat out! none of this damn pacing against each other...

Even if they ban incar splits, there will be someone with a huge cardboard or some other way of communication

[Mirek]

Even if they ban incar splits, there will be someone with a huge cardboard or some other way of communication

Yes but it's still pretty much harder to do so on five places along every stage than to have them automatically in the car and it's even harder in the night, fog, rain, dust or whatever. In the IRC and ERC there are no official split times. Sometimes team use their own splits but often they do not and we've seen there a big number of surprising attacks. For example this year on Jänner rally with Kubica taking a huge gamble on the last stage (actually each of last five editions of Jänner seen a huge attack of one driver over the last stage leading to a major change on the leaderboard). Maybe it's due to the fact that this stage is always held in the dark. Few years back when Bouffier managed to make one minute on just one stage of Cyprus it was also pretty amazing. I strongly believe that with splits it would not happen.

[bluuford]

It's up up to the other teams/ drivers to 'up' their game. Not rely on hand outs by way of favourable running order rules. Why does Motorsport have a problem with this. Does football, have things like this. If a team is too good - Tough!! Deal with it.

You are very wrong here. If you compare kids football with rally. Why the driver who is fastest on the frist rally should be given bigger and bigger advantage before the nex rally even starts?

Do you want to go and play football match against a bit better team but as a better team they are given one goal already? or the football pitch is tilted towards to your goal by 45 degrees all 90 minutes? or their goal is 7 times smaller than yours? Why we punish privateers and beginners? we will never get proper drivers to the sport and we can follow a few rich kids on the stages who are able to drive WRCar slower than medium driver with GrN car?

It is like in normal life that when you want to climb higher on the career ladder then every next tep is harder. Rally should be easier for the beginner and everybody should know that when you are able to lead the championship then you have to be able to drive first on the road as well! THIS IS NOT THE RULE TO TOP OGIER OR ANY OTHER FAST DRIVER!!! This is THE rule that should have been in use always.

I do not care about who is leading the championship, but I do hate when people are making such a stupid conclusions like U did (sorry, but I rarely get angry, now it is that rare occasion). Think about the reason of this rule. It is much better than any kind of weight adding or shootout. It is very clear. You want to lead championship, you have to be ready to drive frist on the road.It is equal for everyone who ever you are. And it is equal to less experienced young drivers and gives them a chanche to show some good reulsts and satisfy their sponsors? Noone wants to see 2fast drivers and then bunch of rich kids who do not care about their speed much. They just care that their car has nice color, cool sound and they can drive fast..

This year rule is quite OK, but the rule with reversed order is like corruption funded by the leader.

Do not get mad, just think about it, I do not want to start any dsicussion here, just make you think about a few simple things in rally.

[Brynmor Pierce]

Personally i'd like to see it like back in the old days, crews were seeded by:
1, If they won the event the previous year
then
2, Their anticipated performance

This whole nonsense about the world champ carries number 1 all year etc...hate it personally

[Lousada]

Strange football analogy. In football better teams are always seeded at draws. The champions league group draw is based on the performance of the last 5 years by that club. Best 8 are group heads, next best 8 are seconds, etc. For the second round all group winners avoid eachother. Everything is aimed at getting the better teams as far into the tournament as possible.

My main problem with the running order in rally is that it is not the same during the rally. Why do only two days by championship order, why not one or three? It makes no logical sense at all and that is probably why they change the system every year. Stick to one system and use that for every day of the rally for every rally. That way people at least know what to expect beforehand.

[stefanvv]

My main problem with the running order in rally is that it is not the same during the rally. Why do only two days by championship order, why not one or three?

Because Ogier must be handicapped little more to be the championship more interesting. In the end it won't make the difference, but I'm sure we'll enjoy colorfull comments from this one.

[AndyRAC]

Simple reason for the football analogy; it's the world biggest and most popular sport. And they keep the rules the same. The same 2,3,4 teams dominate each country's league year on year. Everybody accepts this, and gets on with it.
However, in lots of Motorsports, this is frowned upon. So we get WWE type rules to even things out to stop domination.

When a sport keeps changing it rules/ formats, it obviously has a problem; and/ or those running it are clueless.

[stefanvv]

I think the biggest problem with Rallying is its promotion - regular people just seem to not understand the sport, so the management tries to make it more popular to look like the other sports, when most of the time You have head-to-head competition. Rally is not like that really, and when some driver dominates for a long time, then the obvious conclusion is that something is wrong with the rules. Frankly I find last 2 year's rules (with QS) best fair for the running order, than everything else. So a driver has its own choice to run don the field, depending on his own decision and weather forecast he has. He has no one to blame but himself if this fails.

[Eli]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/115795